If you want a table at Lucali, you have to wait – or hire someone to do it for you.
The acclaimed Carroll Gardens pizzeria — which is cash-only, BYOB, doesn’t take reservations and is beloved by celebrities like Jay-Z and Beyoncé — tops the list in a recent TaskRabbit report on the city’s most popular restaurants for hiring Taskers to wait a table.
After Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce dined there in September, requests for line waiters at the pizza hot spot increased by 30%, according to a TaskRabbit spokesperson.
“The most popular request so far is for bookings on Lucali,” a Tasker who goes by Tanya B told The Post. She charges $20 an hour to line up and has waited up to three hours at the pizzeria.
“I’ve been hired many times to wait there,” added another Tasker, Collins B, who says his average job at Lucali lasts three hours.
Lesa Raab, a 42-year-old publicist in NYC, hired a Tasker from TaskRabbit to queue for her at Lucali last month. She wanted a table of four at 6:30 p.m
Tasker waited two hours, charged her $65, and Raab said, “he got us exactly that.”
In the past Raab tried to wait in line himself and failed.
“My boyfriend and I previously tried to go in the spring, on a day when we could get off work a little early, and even though we showed up and waited in line for almost an hour, we couldn’t get a table,” she said. . “We noticed that some of the people have to be paid line waiters and decided then that when we try it again, that would be our move.”
She now recommends this trick to all her friends. “I have referred to the gentleman who hosted us that they do the same,” she said.
(The Post has contacted Lucali for comment)
Other restaurants in the top 5 for TaskRabbit hiring are Kisa, a Korean restaurant on the Lower East Side; Double Chicken Please, a downtown cocktail bar serving eclectic chicken sandwiches; the Italian classic Emilio’s Ballato in Houston and the twee West Village trattoria Via Carota.
The latter is a semi-regular destination for Swift, who has a home nearby on Cornelia Street. And, the pop star also had a girls’ night out at Emilio’s Ballato in fall 2023 with Sophia Turner, Brittany Mahomes, Blake Lively and Lively’s big sister Robyn.
TaskRabbit said its Taskers are increasingly being hired, not to hang TVs and assemble IKEA furniture, but just to hang around. Queue requests in New York City were up 56% in October compared to September. Nationally, TaskRabbit has seen an 18% increase in demand for online waiters in the past year.
For Taskers, money is relatively easy.
“It’s definitely the category that keeps me the most busy,” said Tanya B. In addition to Lucali, she’s also hosted sushi spot SUGARFISH in Midtown and Italian-American fashionista Don Angie in the West Village.
Collins B said he earns up to $2,000 a month from waiting in line at restaurants, selling samples and the like. Business is especially brisk from October to December with the holidays.
“This particular service appeals to me because it doesn’t require any specialized skills other than patience, which is a quality I’ve always had,” he said.
However, it is not without its challenges.
“One of the most common issues is people trying to cut the line,” he said. He also had to master the timely notification of clients so that they could meet and change places smoothly.
Tanya B has also picked up a few tricks along the way.
She always wears comfortable shoes and layered dresses so she is prepared for changing weather. A rain jacket, umbrella, portable bench, water and plenty of snacks are also essential.
In almost every wait job, she runs into other professional line waiters, some of whom use nasty tricks to secure tables.
“Not everyone follows the rules of decency and fairness like Taskers do, so sometimes you have to be secretive,” she said. “I won’t divulge all the methods I use to make sure I get and keep my coveted spot on the line for my clients. But it works.”
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